AVR-Based Serial Enabled LCDs Hookup Guide

Introduction

The AVR-based serial enabled LCD (a.k.a. SerLCD) is a simple and cost effective solution for adding Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) into your project. The PCB design on the back of the screen includes an ATMega328P that handles all of the screen control. It can accept commands via serial, I2C and SPI. This simplifies the number of wires needed and allows your project to display all kinds of text and numbers.

The firmware is fully opensource and available for download at the github repo here:

This allows for any customizations you may need. Uploading firmware (custom or updates), is easily done from the Arduino IDE using a Serial Basic. See firmware update instructions in the troubleshooting section of this tutorial for more info.

Also note, the example code used below is all available in the repo (along with many more examples). Before beginning this tutorial, it’s a good idea to clone the repository (or download the entire repo as a zip), to grab all of the examples. But if you prefer, you can always use the “COPY CODE” button on each of the examples below.

Note that these all have identical firmware and can accept the same commands. However, you must adjust your display characters and cursor position as necessary for each model. Also note, there is a jumper on the back of each screen, and this “tells” the firmware how to correctly set the lines and columns for each screen.

Required Materials

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need the following materials at a minimum. Depending on what you have, you may not need everything on this list. Add it to your cart, read through the guide, and adjust the cart as necessary.

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